
This is an extract from 'My Amy' by Tyler James.
Friday, 22 July 2011, 1 p.m. The phone rang and her name came up.
‘AMY.’
Her voice said, like it always did: ‘You alright darlin’?’
I wasn’t alright. Because she wasn’t alright. Nothing was alright. Last night I’d walked out of our home in Camden Square, the last of countless homes we’d lived in together since Amy was eighteen years old.
We’d been best mates since she was twelve and I was thirteen, inseparable soulmates forever. Walking out was a new tactic for me. I’d tried everything else.
After years of trauma, of trying to save Amy, I was running out of ideas. So now, every time she relapsed, I’d leave because I wouldn’t support her drinking.
‘If you’re drinking, I won’t be here.’
Watch the trailer for Amy. Post continues below.
Sometimes I was there but she wouldn’t know it.
I’d sleep under a blanket on the treadmill in the gym downstairs to get away from the noise: she’d scream my name, blare music, play the zombie film Planet Terror on a loop all night long, blasting it out of her speakers.
But mostly I’d go to my mum’s in Essex for two, three, four days. Then Amy would ring.
‘T, please come home.’ And we’d make a deal.
‘I’ll come home. We’ll start the process again, withdrawal, stopping drinking tomorrow.’
And it worked. It was working. She was getting better.
She went three weeks without a drink, four days back on it, three weeks off again. Every day she was sober she was in the gym, on the treadmill, rebuilding herself.
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